Tag: Junior Dos Santos

With a somewhat forgettable year thankfully coming to an end, UFC 155 looked to excite fans, promote contenders and get everybody ready for a new year. This card did exactly that. Not to reach into our bag of clichés so early into the aftermath, but UFC 155 really sent 2012 out with a bang, and set the bar high for upcoming cards in 2013.

With as many solid fights as took place Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 155, Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon’s three round battle was recognized by the UFC brass as the Fight of The Night and each man earned an extra $65,000 for their effort. The lightweight contenders should also be in consideration for Fight of The Year lists everywhere.

If it is, Lauzon will be competing with himself for his incredible fight last August against Jamie Varner. JLau may have lost the decision against Miller on the judge’s score cards, two rounds to one, but deserves credit for coming back from being bullied, beaten and bloodied badly in the first round by Miller in the first round and finishing stronger in the final two rounds.

On the strength of his aggressiveness and multiple submission attempts to close out the second and third rounds, this writer believes that a very reasonable judge could have scored the bout Lauzon’s way instead of Miller’s. As it stands, both men were impressive in their own ways and, *reaches back into the bag of applicable clichés* there simply were no “losers” in this one.

Miller has always shown excellent boxing skills but he may have been sharper than ever before against Lauzon in the first and second rounds, scoring almost at will with shots to the body and head, as well as knocking Joe down repeatedly with a nasty inside leg kick. His dirty boxing from the clinch was masterful, using punches, knees and elbows to hurt and cut open Lauzon over and again.

UFC 155 might not be as epic as some of the UFC’s previous end-of-year cards (you can blame the injury curse for that), but any time the Heavyweight Championship of the World is at stake, it’s must-see TV.

Running our final liveblog of the year (!) will be none other than Elias Cepeda, who will be updating you with round-by-round results after the jump starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please share your New Year’s resolutions in the comments section.

Most of us tend to forget that UFC heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos is a BJJ black belt under the Nogueira brothers, probably because we’d like to continue living in a world where we can convince ourselves that a 6’4″, 240 pound killing machine has some discernible weakness other than being a really nice guy when he’s not caving in your face like a Silver Shamrock Halloween mask. That’s right, I just referenced Halloween 3. I’m less a writer, more a prophet.

But unfortunately, the video that awaits you after the jump proves once and for all that JDS is, like me, an absolute master of his trade. In the video, we see a young Junior competing in his second professional MMA fight against Eduardo Maiorino, who sadly passed away from a heart attack just two days ago at the tender age of 33. After opening the fight with a signature flurry of punches, Dos Santos secures a takedown and is able to latch onto a guillotine choke from half guard that seems to be less technique and more Junior using his cyborg strength to vice grip his hapless opponent into submission.

(It was around roughly the fourth punch to Velasquez’s dome that Big John began to question the validity of Junior’s CPR certificate.)

Today at 4 p.m. EST, the UFC 155 press conference will kick off live from Las Vegas, Nevada. It will no doubt feature Junior dos Santos doing his typical “Baby Huey trapped in the body of Jason Voorhees” nice guy routine and Cain Velasquez repeatedly stating that “Yes, I will in fact bring a different gameplan into this fight, so for the love of God, stop asking me this question” while Dana White tries to comment on how great of a fight this is without dropping fourteen consecutive f-bombs in the process. All in all, it should be pretty entertaining as far as press conferences go, so join us after the jump to catch all the action (or lack thereof) starting at 4 p.m. EST.

(If you ever needed a sign that Photoshop is out of control in this country, look no further than the Koopa Troopas facing off in this photo.)

By Dan “Get Off Me” George

This Saturday night, Zuffa will close out 2012 with a rematch between former UFC champion Cain Velasquez and current heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos. It has since been revealed that both fighters were injured heading into their original matchup (cue the guy who says “all fighters fight with injuries”), so there are a lot of extraneous factors heading into the rematch that you should seriously consider before placing your bets.

With a 3-4 record over the past 7 UFC shows, the GAE has slipped into the red for the first time since UFC 148 (thanks in no small part to that God damned injury curse) and we need a boost to avoid dining on Newfoundland steak and mashed potatoes in 2013. UFC on Fox 5 was a particularly cruel mistress, and like a Diaz brother taking a realtor’s exam, the result was a miserable failure. So follow us after the jump as we keep it short and sweet in the hopes of turning a profit for UFC 155: Dos Santos vs. Velasquez 2.

Leonard Garcia will be looking to avoid his fourth consecutive loss against a young up-and-comer out of Hawaii in Max Holloway. Holloway will enjoy a 12yr advantage in the father time category and I believe Garcia gives him the stand up fight he wants on Saturday night. Holloway will be too fast and this may very well look like a Cerrone/Garcia barnyard sparring session, with Holloway playing the role of “The Cowboy.” Max makes the parlay list and wins in an exciting affair as “Bad Boy” tries to find the mark with those crazy hands of his while Holloway picks him apart from the outside.

24/7 or a UFC Prime Time it ain’t, but Fox has put together some decent Countdown documentary/promo shows together. The newest one, looking towards this weekend’s UFC 155, features a look at the careers and camps of former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and current title holder Junior Dos Santos.

In the video, Cain talks about the lessons he learned as a college athlete that he feels will help him avenge his loss to Dos Santos. Dos Santos discusses the challenge of keeping Cain off of him and preventing him from using his All-American wrestling skills to stymie the Brazilian’s dangerous punches.

Also on the Countdown to UFC 155, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller exchange smack talk and promises as they discuss their lightweight contender fight. If you’re lucky enough to still be sitting on your ass, stuffed with food sit back and enjoy watching pro athletes train harder in a single day of training than you ever have.

(Caution: This conference call was apparently recorded in a tin can headed straight for Pluto. Adjust speakers accordingly.)

For a guy who is supposed to be defending his title against Cain Velasquez in just over a week at UFC 155, heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos still seems awfully focused on Alistair Overeem, the man he was set to face back at UFC 146 before…well, you know. During the UFC 155 media call (full audio above), dos Santos touched on the respect he had for Velasquez as a professional, but not without taking a dig at Overeem in the process:

I prefer to fight against clean athletes and real professionals. Cain Velasquez is one of these guys. He’s a real professional fighter and that’s a good challenge for me. I know he’s very tough and I know how hard I have to train to face him. And the OTHER GUYS, they just say things, but there’s nothing behind the words. Guys like me and Cain Velasquez, we are made at the gym. Guys like the OTHER GUY there, they are made in the laboratory.

And no matchup on the card has a higher likelihood of ending with a fantastic finish than the main event rematch between former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and the man that took his belt away, current heavyweight kingpin Junior dos Santos. There were a lot of extraneous factors leading into their original clash at UFC on FOX 1 — Velasquez had come off back-to-back surgeries and dos Santos went into the bout with a torn meniscus. However, Velasquez looked like a man possessed in his first round destruction of Antonio Silva at UFC 146 and promises to bring the same one sided ass-kicking to dos Santos in the above preview, so check it out and give us your predictions for the fight in the comments section.

After the jump: A video claiming to have captured Velasquez tearing his ACL just two weeks before his loss to dos Santos at UFC on FOX 1. If that’s truly the case, Velasquez deserves major bro hugs for even making into the ring, because damn.

(The best way to stop Cheick Kongo from kneeing you in the jewels? Turns out, it’s a simple jab. Who woulda thunk it?)

As is the case for approximately 95% of the UFC’s current roster, Mark Hunt was forced to pull out of his last scheduled fight (against Stefan Struve) due to injury. But while he’s been quietly recuperating his knee and enjoying his current, not to mention improbable 3 fight win streak in the UFC, he’s apparently also been thinking about leveling the score with some of his former foes. Mainly, that of Alistair Overeem, who defeated Hunt by first round keylock when the two clashed back in June of 2008 at DREAM 5. It was Hunt’s third straight loss to come via form of arm-lock, but it certainly wouldn’t be his most painful.

In either case, it appears that Hunt may have heard through the grapevine that Alistair stated he would prefer to fight as soon as he got his license back, title shot or not, and figured he could kill two birds with one stone. Those two birds being a bit of redemption and possibly the next heavyweight title shot. He told The MMA Hour:

If they’d like to get me a fight I’d like to get a rematch with Alistair Overeem, you know, when he comes back from his injury or from whatever, his hiatus. You know? I’d like to have my rematch with him. I’d be willing to fight next year so it doesn’t matter. If he gets a title shot, that’s good on him.

We hate to sound like a bunch of little schoolgirls but OMG JOE SILVA BOOK THIS FIGHT WE’LL LUV U 4EVER PLZZ!!

We don’t mean to judge a book by it’s cover, but when that cover is a 327 lb man who goes by the name Tater Williams, it’s safe to say that he will more than likely end up on the wrong side of a knockout. Scratch that. If anything, a 327 lb dude named Tater Williams should most certainly end up on the RIGHT side of a knockout. His name is freaking TATER FREAKING WILLIAMS, and he uses catchphrases like “Five of these across the sneeze,” and “You’re gonna get ‘that’ about 147 times” in between asthmatic gasps for air. “That” being the aforementioned sneeze punches. Throw in the fact that Tater is apparently “a really great athlete” who has studied judo, wrestling, sambo, and had a high school wrestling record of 226-12* and not only is Tater suddenly looking like a well-rounded Goliath, but one who could demolish the likes of Junior Dos Santos, Cain Velasquez, and Alistair Overeem. At the same time. While in a diabetic coma.

Sadly, things do go quite according to plan in the next chapter of the XARM saga (but have they ever, really?), a sport so hilariously misguided that it really makes you yearn for the subtle nuances of wheelchair MMA. In today’s contest, Tater finds himself matched up against the slightly-slimmer Bond Laupua (I swear to God I am not making these names up), who is quick to admit that “I don’t really have a strategy” heading into the fight. The announcers inform us that Tater’s gameplan was to gain weight. HOW DID HE LOSE THIS.

Join us after the jump to see two bears wrestle over a jar of honey until one falls down.